A Deeper Problem
by NumberSix
Summary: An adventure unfolds. Starring the Ninth Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler. (Updated)
1. Part One

This adventure takes place during an undecided point in the Ninth Doctor's run.

The characters and the term 'TARDIS' are owned by the BBC, though I suspect that goes unsaid.

_Be a responsible reader; I earnestly urge you to review to repay my toils._

* * *

"It's only a leaky valve- it's nothing to fret over!" The Doctor was bellowing over the mechanical hissing and grinding that steadily persisted. The TARDIS console groaned, a dull shudder barely discernible over the noise of escaping stream and vapour, and jolted underneath Rose Tyler's feet. She attempted to steady herself in vain, one hand firmly clasped over her mouth and the other grasping the rail in front of her. Her swift reflexes delivered her from an unpleasant journey towards the wavering floor beneath her feet, which was now canting back and forth along with the entire console room. However, the victory was fleeting; her sweat-soaked palms had loosened her grip on the rail, and she stumbled backwards wildly with a cry. The Doctor was there to break her fall, much to his chagrin, and they lay on the ground in a crumpled heap as the room continued to totter, stagger, and Rose swore that it was now spinning in a display of erratic temperament.

"I told you to stop fretting, it's all under control!" The Doctor slowly rose to a defiant stance, his hands hovering towards the console. Like a child backing away from a ferocious dog, but in reverse, The Doctor first stepped precariously towards the controls. He held his arms in front of him, and his strides were reliant on the intensity of the jolts that shot through the floor and keept Rose pressed against a wall. Her hair fell straight, sagging at her shoulders, drenched with perspiration. The Doctor had stopped midway, his arms slowly recoiled, and another tremour, this one sending Rose to her knees, propelled him towards the console. He was on it before her gaze snapped upwards, his hands tearing fiercely at the wires inside until the tremendous hissing waned into a faint spit, and eventually dissipated into silence. Rose stood hesitantly, her clothes sopping, staring at The Doctor with as much bemusement as she could possibly muster.

"That was a bit rough," he chirped, his gaze fixated on the handful of wires that dangled from his clenched fist. He simply opened his hand, letting them fall to the TARDIS floor in a stunning display of gravity.

"A bit…Rough…You say?" Rose stared at him in utter disbelief, her expression plagued with a mixture of anger and bewilderment. She pulled the sodden hair from her face to ensure the expression was completely exposed. The Doctor simply grinned toothily.

"I've had better, what about you?"

* * *

Not even a long shower soothed the purple and yellow splotched rings around her kneecaps and elbows, and she was sure that every joint in her body was systematically throbbing in some strange orchestrated display of pain. On top of the bruises and pulsing, she had bit down on her lip when hitting the floor, splitting it open and immediately granting it an excuse to swell up conspicuously. Wear and tear, she thought. No broken bones, after all.

When she reentered the console room, The Doctor's feet were sticking out from under the inflicted area of the control panel. She tucked her hair behind her ear and reluctantly knelt down beside his exposed legs, peering under until she could make out silhouetted features under the pale blue glow of a Sonic Screwdriver. She caught his eye, but he continued to occupy himself for a long moment before his voice came from the darkness.

"You look like hell, Rose Tyler. What would your mother say if she saw you in this state?"

Rose didn't need to see his cheekily smirk. She sank to her elbows now, on level with the floor, following the blue beacon with her gaze, "She'd say I deserved it for going off with a bloke like you. You know, the sort of bloke who travels through both time and space in a machine that he has as much control over as a goldfish does over the moon cycle. I reckon she'd say something to that effect."

No response at first, simply a flat, "I take offense, Rose Tyler." The light flickered, and she could no longer tell his countenance from the shade.

"This wasn't her fault."

"Whose fault?" Rose squirmed closer to the opening of the panel that The Doctor had wedged himself through, save for the two ever-present shins and feet that now rested at the side of her hip. Rose pulled at one of his feet urgently, repeating her question.

"Whose fault?"

"This was external. Something strong enough to affect us here, inside the TARDIS. I promised you a hearty adventure, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait another time. We'll have another go, once she cools down. But for now, you may as well push off."

Rose sat up, her look of disappointment hidden from The Doctor, "I can help. Listen, there's enough room for both of us under there, and I'm good with mechanics. I'm brilliant with potatoes and lightbulbs," She quickly added, "Have you seen those? A kitsch experiment…Are you any interested in this, Doctor?" She peered, her waxing smile veiled from behind the darkness.

"It would help if you fetched my toolbox, Rose. Seventeen floors down, three corridors over, twenty-eighth, no, twenty-ninth door to your centre." The Doctor pulled himself out from underneath the console slowly, just enough to nod at her encouragingly as she painfully got to her feet. "I can't do a bloody thing without it. Go on, then. 'Atta girl." She didn't take kindly to his expression, but silently decided that desperate times called for desperate tongue biting, and was sprinting down the hall before she knew it.

The Doctor remained, his hand disappearing into the darkness, and retracting to slowly reveal a toolbox at his side. With a brooding stare, he wrenched himself free from the console and rose to his feet. He pulled down his sleeves, reached for his leather jacket that lay strewn across the console, and took one glance down the TARDIS hallway before hastily stepping outside, locking the door behind him. There were two keys clenched in his fist, his own and Rose's, which he managed to slip out of her pocket just before she went on her fruitless search


	2. Part Two

Rose Tyler did not consider herself nimble in the least, but she was in the midst of a considerable balancing act. One foot planted on a precariously placed box, and the other extended in such a way to shift her balance and allow her to reach awkwardly. She slowly ran her fingers over the edge of the top shelf, disturbing only a thick sheet of dust. She breathed a sigh of frustration, looking down the seemingly endless row of shelves that were contained in this infinite joke of a garage. The box teetered under her weight, and she shifted her footing to accommodate this. She found herself clasping the edges of the shelve unsteadily, her footing ready to give way. _This is ridiculous_, she thought. _I don't even know what an alien toolbox looks like! It could be a trout, or a brick, or--_

The lighting suddenly flickered overhead. Rose craned her neck, gazing upwards, her eyebrows pursed in consternation. She had sensed a presence.

"Who's there? Who's that?"

As if struck by an invisible clout, the room abruptly jerked. A deep groan rose from the ground, metallic grinding that Rose felt commence beneath her feet, rapidly rip through the room, up the walls, and ebb into the ceiling. The tremble was enough to incite the box to give way under Rose's struggling foot, and thrust her forward to meet the shelf. She felt the sickening crack as her already raw lip split open against the metal of the shelf, a warm gush of blood now trickling down her chin. She slowly lowered herself to welcome the ground beneath her trembling feet. With a slight hop, she stood, her hand raised to her bloody lip, and her gaze widened.

"Doctor?" Her voice traveled across the disturbed room. With a final glance around, she inched towards the door, and set off down the hall to find a bathroom in the depths of the TARDIS.

* * *

The Doctor's gaze was fixed on the dim horizon. The planet was barren and cavernous; a landscape of brown mingled with black and red. The scattered boulders gave the surface a ravaged look- as if the planet had survived a series of intense earthquakes. Thesoil was loose under The Doctor's feet; he sensed a soft tremble coming from its depths, and the pebbles jumped around his ankles. His hand was firmly placed on the TARDIS door.

"Why here, old girl?"

He stood contemplatively, and then trudged ahead, hopping over wayward stones with relative ease. With a whistle, he came to a stop and gazed into a spanning crater that stretched as far as he could see. Its impressive depths were concealed in darkness, and it seemed bottomless from where The Doctor stood. "Mighty impressive, sure, but astoundingly inconvenient for the weary traveler," he peered from side to side, finding the crater to exist as more of canyon, with no away across. Small stones rolled down the sides of the chasm, leaving vague dust trails as they fell.

He pulled himself to the edge, dangling his feet resolutely. Propelling himself forward with the guidance of his hands, he skidded down the curved side of the crater erratically. With a stunning realization that his plan of action was considerably flawed, he desperately reached for something, anything, to stop the unpleasant sensation of having his limbs violently ripped from the sockets as he continued on his way. He tumbled, and suddenly found himself wedged against a protruding rock about thirty metres from the crater's edge. He gasped, a thankful grin spreading across his features, exultingly proclaiming, "Nothing like the impending threat of death to get the adrenaline pumping!" He laughed unabashedly and slowly continued down his way, this time taking care to not slip.

From behind the rock that broke his fall, a hooded figure crept on all fours, swiftly darting down after the intruder.

* * *

Rose stumbled slightly as she continued down the hallway. One hand was pressed again the wall in preparation for another violent shake, and the other was at her side, still wet with the blood from her injured lip. A few drops slid down her fingers and plummeted to the ground, but this was of little concern to Rose, who was desperate to wash up before returning to The Doctor and lying about having looked everywhere for his decidedly nonexistent toolbox. She was thinking of something particularly biting to follow it up by, but her train of thought was rudely interrupted when she noticed the irregular behaviour of the droplets of blood on the pristine TARDIS floor.

They were streaked along the floor, as if running down an incline. Rose could not recall The Doctor even commenting on this sort of phenomenon, so she ripped a beaded bracelet from her arm ferociously, allowing the small glass beads to scatter in every direction. Curiously, the beads behaved in the same manner, and began rolling down the hall. It was hardly a swift movement at first, and Rose kept up with ease, but soon the beads raced out of sight.

"Hey, not so fast! Damn it."

Thankfully, Rose no longer needed them to guide her, as she felt her entire frame drawn by an increasing force, beckoning her down the TARDIS's winding corridors, and into its depths.


	3. Part Three

The Doctor estimated that he had been climbing for hours. After the initial process of descending to the bottom of the gorge, he had found himself staring into a gaping hole that stretched into infinite darkness. It was a small gash in the floor of the canyon, leading down into the belly of the earth with seemingly no end. Before venturing to scale it, he had kicked several stones into its vastness, listening to them topple down one after another with no indication how long they fell before reaching a conceivable bottom.

"Curiouser and coriouser," he distinctly remembered musing before throwing his jacket aside and fastidiously edging down into the mouth of the opening. He had watched the daylight shrink and slowly vanish as he lowered himself into almost certain danger. Something compelled him to continue, and left a dull throbbing in his temples.

That was hours ago now. The only noise available to him was the skittering of loose stones plinking down and down as he pushed on. His surroundings were lost completely to the smoldering darkness that pressed down on him. He moved slowly and meticulously, and could feel his own breath on his face. He shifted uncomfortably against the rocks, pausing to catch his breath.

"I expect a warm reception!" He shouted irately into the blackness. The only response was the plinking of a stone disturbed by his footing. It fell, bouncing off the walls of the cavern, and eventually coming to a full stop, hitting an invisible ground. _The bottom!_ His brain hissed. _The bottom! The bottom! _No longer able to contain himself, he broke into a manic chuckle, and eventually a full-blown laugh when he felt his foot brush solid, flat ground. He stood, earnestly squinting to discern something, anything, in this vastness. Once his heartbeats settled and he caught his breath, he listened intently as he felt for his pocket.

"I believe you've been expecting me," he cried, letting the sound reverberate before shifting, straining to listen.

"I'm The Doctor," he continued, this time thunderous. His voice faded away, leaving him in silence once again, except for a soft rustle to his left. Even with his acute hearing, he barely caught it. Then a scrape. Another one. Bare feet scraping against the solid ground. They were circling him.

"What do you want?" He asked calmly, finding his Sonic Screwdriver clamped tightly in his hand. The noise continued like a paced march. He barely had time to produce his Screwdriver, its soft blue light blinding in the darkness his eyes had become accustomed to, before it was knocked out of his hands. It rolled, hitting the robes of wafer-thin creature that still remained mostly in shadow. There was a horrible scream, all of the creatures seemed to cry out in unison, and they scattered in every direction. The Doctor took the opportunity to dive for the light, snatching up the Screwdriver before looking after the noise of feet in the darkness.

"Come back! I'm The Doctor! Only here to help!" He shouted after them. The noise disappeared in the darkness, save for a dull movement behind him. He slowly turned, his hands stretched out in front of himself.

"Listen, and don't you dare run! Of course! You must be hypersensitive to light--" He managed before receiving a devastating blow to the back of his head, knocking him to his knees. He heard the offending instrument, what he supposed to be a blunt rock, thrown to the ground beside him. With a sharp groan, he found his mind slip into further and resolute oblivion, matched only by the darkness that swallowed him now.


End file.
